Spring Of Ardor

We meet Noah Bennett, a 26-year-old librarian in Portland who is deeply, vocally done with his job and sorting through dusty books alongside his best friend and work wife Heather. Their Monday morning banter gets interrupted when a very well-dressed attorney named Richard Turner shows up at the library to inform Noah that his estranged uncle Harold has died and left him something significant. Noah hasn't seen or heard from the man in roughly ten years, so the news lands somewhere between baffling and suspicious. He agrees to attend the Friday will reading anyway, partly because Heather guilts him into it.

The will reading is exactly the disaster Noah predicted. Aunt Cynthia arrives fully loaded with contempt and makes it loudly clear she does not think Noah deserves to be in the room. Uncle Kevin sits quietly at her side. The attorney reads the will: Cynthia gets 70% of Harold's bank account and the Cape Corell estate, Kevin gets the Ford Mustang, and Noah gets 20% of the bank account (several million US dollars) plus full ownership of every property Harold held on Carolina Island, including the Ardor Springs Resort and Nature Reserve. Cynthia loses her mind and threatens to contest the will. Kevin quietly pulls Noah aside afterward and offers genuine condolences, which surprises Noah and, honestly, surprises us too.

Two weeks later, Noah lands on Carolina Island with a two-hour Miami layover behind him and zero idea what he has actually inherited. Juan, the resort's staff member who has been running the place for Harold for years, meets him at the airport. He is enormous, warm, and immediately makes Noah's brain short-circuit. Juan drives Noah to the resort and casually drops the information that Ardor Springs is, in fact, a nudist resort for men... a detail that was somehow left out of all the inheritance paperwork. Noah takes this news very well. Along the way, Juan also mentions Harold had a husband who predeceased him, which is how Noah first learns his uncle was gay.

At the resort, Noah notices a large commissioned portrait in reception depicting Victor Javier Bennett, the family's founding ancestor on the island going back several centuries. Juan is evasive when Noah asks why all the guests had to vacate upon Harold's death, brushing it off as "one of the rules" and promising guests will return within two days. Noah calls Heather, gets completely distracted mid-call when Juan walks through the room in his natural state, and hangs up in a hurry. When it comes to sleeping arrangements, the choice between taking a guest room alone or sharing the staff room with Juan is, as we put it, a no-brainer. We settle in, the demo wraps up, and we are very ready to see where this goes.

We pick up right where we left off, with Juan cooking dinner and Noah settling in. Over the meal, Juan opens up about his backstory: born on Carolina Island, never really left, and came to work at the resort six years ago after one of Harold's husbands invited him to try the spring. After that dip, he knew he was meant to stay. The tour that follows covers the gym (yes, guests work out in the buff), an outdoor communal shower, a sauna, and finally the Ardor Spring itself, where Juan explains the spring's reputation for boosting vitality and arousal. Noah is skeptical, to put it mildly. Juan convinces him to strip and get in anyway, and the moment Noah enters the water, the spring lights up and shows him a vision of his ancestors, establishing him as the new Bennett custodian. Juan explains the role: the Bennetts have been custodians for centuries, and the spring essentially chose Noah before he was even born. That evening, the spring (and Juan) make their intentions very clear, and Noah and Juan have their first encounter right there in the water.

The morning after, Noah wakes up feeling impossibly well-rested and very ready for round two... but Juan has to go into town to collect the resort's food and beverage order before guests arrive the next day, and he cuts things off. He tells Noah to use Harold's computer in the office. Noah finds it password-protected, discovers a handwritten note hinting the password is "the year the first Bennett died," and then locates a portrait of Victor Javier Bennett (1631, 1657) hanging in reception. Cracking the year 1657 as the password, he accesses the computer and finds a letter Harold left him on the desktop. The letter apologises for their estrangement, confirms Harold always knew Noah would be the next custodian (the spring told him, long before Noah was born), and urges Noah to embrace the legacy of Ardor Springs. Noah reads the whole thing with deep scepticism, still convinced there has to be a rational explanation for everything.

That afternoon, Mateo arrives, having spent the past couple of days hiking nude through the nature reserve. He is blonde, heavily built, very pierced, and radiates full boy-band-runaway energy. We are not romancing Mateo. I said what I said. Noah calls Heather, who is still suffering through rainy Portland, and insists on booking her a suite at the second-best resort on the island entirely at his own expense. She protests. He does it anyway. Rich Noah moves fast.

Noah and Mateo end up in the spring together, and Mateo delivers the origin legend of the Bennett family as told by his grandmother: a Darian explorer named Victor befriended newcomers to the island, helped liberate the town from a villain and his thugs, and as a reward was offered the hand of the mayor's daughter (his best friend). Victor took the family's name, and the Bennett line was born. Mateo also fills in the gaps Juan was too vague to address: the spring's magic is real but unexplainable; Harold knew Noah was coming because the spring told him; Harold had two husbands who predeceased him and the three lived polyamorously; and Juan and Mateo are spring guardians, not custodians, which means they can sense the custodian's emotional and physical state through the spring's connection. Yes, including arousal. Yes, at all times. Noah takes this information remarkably well. The conversation leads where it inevitably leads, and Noah and Mateo have their own encounter in the spring. Juan arrives home from shopping to find them there, looks briefly displeased (a woman at the store has been persistently pursuing him and that is apparently the stated reason for his mood, sure), and the episode ends with all three acknowledging that both of Noah's first resort hookups went pretty chill.